Scandals in Australian universities

In Australia, scandals about the management of public universities continue to be covered in the media. A recent one is the use of billions of dollars to pay consulting firms to tell management which staff to sack and courses to cut because they are not making a profit.

Below is a recent episode of an ABC (Australian equivalent of BBC or PBS in USA) show on the topic, Chaos on Campus.

I tend to avoid engaging too much with media lamenting the state of unversities as I find it too disturbing. However, I was asked to reference the show in something I was asked to write and so felt I should watch it. It was painful.

This is definitely a scandal. However, it got me reflecting on something that I think gets virtually no media coverage and when I talk to people outside the university, they are pretty surprised and shocked. Anecdotal evidence from my colleagues is that attendance at lectures is now typically around 10-30 per cent of enrolment. Even before COVID-19, lectures at UQ were all recorded. Faculty have no choice. But only a few per cent of students watch the videos. This is quite demoralising for faculty.

What does this low level of student engagement mean for learning outcomes?

What is happening elsewhere? 

Here are some links from Google AI. 

I did not find them that insightful.

One link is an article from The Guardian in Australia from last year. It highlights how moving things to online and lowering standards is driven by financial incentives. This ties in with the scandals in the video. The values of Australian universities are money, marketing, management, and metrics.

What is your own experience with the level of disengagement? How do you think this is affecting student learning? How are you and your colleagues adapting? Are academic standards being lowered? Any suggestions on ways forward?

Hikes around Brisbane I recommend

My colleague, Carla Verdi, suggested I write this post. Here are a few short hikes that I enjoy. I list them in order of distance from Brisbane.

If you use the AllTrails app, you can find more details on my profile. I also recommend the book, Take a Walk in South East Queensland.

Tarcoola Track 

This is a path that follows the Brisbane River. It starts only a few minutes drive (or ten minutes walk) south of the UQ St Lucia campus. The best bit of the trail is the first few minutes, which is almost a rainforest. I do part of this trail several times a week as it is accessible from my house and nicely combines with a walk on the neighbouring public golf course.

More than one hundred bird species have been recorded along the track. I believe this list was started by Hugh Possingham.

Mount Coot-tha

This is about fifteen fifteen-minute drive from St. Lucia. You can also get a public bus there. The summit has a nice cafe with an amazing view of the city.

I do a two-hour hike there each week with my dog, Priya. There are many trails and different starting points to select from. It is amazing that you can be so close to the city and almost feel like you are in the wilderness, particularly when you get off the large and popular trails. One of the many joys of living in Brisbane.

In the summer, due to the heat, I often start walking not long after sunrise. I avoid tracks that are shared with mountain bikes. 

Favourite walks include passing by Simpson's Falls and JC Slaughter Falls. Here is an example. There is some amazing indigenous art near the Slaughter Falls.

White Rock - Spring Mountain Conservation Estate

This is on the southern edge of Brisbane, next to Springfield. It is about a 30 minute drive, outside of rush hour.

I recently did the Spring Mountain Loop via Mountain Creek Trail.

The hikes below involve a day trip because of the driving. I don't like driving and so only do them when I am in the area for another reason or staying overnight.

Glasshouse mountains

In good traffic, they are about a 90-minute drive north of Brisbane.

I recently completed the Mount Tibberoowuccum and Trachyte Circuit Loop

Springbrook National Park

A bit less than 2 hours' drive, provided that the highway to the Gold Coast is not busy.

Warrie Circuit is a classic.

Lamington National Park

There are many hikes starting at Binna Burra or O'Reilly's.

I recently completed the Daves Creek circuit. Amazing, except for the leeches.

Why is the state of universities such an emotional issue for me?

It all about values!

Universities have changed dramatically over the course of my lifetime. Australian universities are receiving increasing media attention due to failures in management and governance. But there is a lot more to the story, particularly at the grassroots level, of the everyday experience of students and faculty. It is all about the four M's: management, marketing, metrics, and money. Learning, understanding, and discovering things for their own sake is alien and marginalised. I have stopped writing posts about this. So why come back to it?

I am often struck how emotional this issue is for me and how hard it is to sometimes talk about it, particularly with those with a different view from me. Writing blog posts (e.g. this one) about it has been a somewhat constructive outlet, rather than exploding in anger at an overpaid and unqualified "manager" or one of their many multiplying minions.

A few weeks ago, I listened to three public lectures by the Australian historian Peter Harrison. [He is my former UQ colleague. We are now both Emeritus. I benefited from excellent seminars he ran at UQ, some of which I blogged about].

The lectures helped me understand what has happened to universities and also why it is a sensitive subject for me. Briefly, it is all about values and virtues.

The lectures are nicely summarised by Peter in the short article, 

How our universities became disenchanted: Secularisation, bureaucracy and the erosion of value

Reading the article rather than this blog post is recommended. I won't try and summarise it, but rather highlight a few points and then make some peripheral commentary.

I agree with Peter's descriptions of the problems we see on the surface (bureaucracy, metrics, and management features significantly). His lectures are a much deeper analysis of underlying cultural changes and shifting worldviews that have occurred over centuries, leading universities to evolve into their current mangled form.

A few things to clarify to avoid potential misunderstanding of Peter's arguments.

Secularisation is defined broadly. It does not just refer to the decline in the public influence of Christianity in the Western world. It is also about Greek philosophy, particularly Aristotle, and the associated emphasis on virtues and transcendence. Peter states:

"The intrinsic motivations of teachers, researchers and scholars can be understood in terms of virtues or duties. According to virtue ethics, the “good” of an activity is related to the way it leads to a cultivation and expression of particular virtues. These, in turn, are related to a particular conception of natural human ends or goals. (Aristotle’s understanding of human nature, which informs virtue ethics, proposes that human beings are naturally oriented towards knowledge, and that they are fulfilled as persons to the extent that they pursue those goals and develop the requisite intellectual virtues.)"

The virtue ethics of Aristotle [and Alisdair MacIntyre] conflicts with competing ethical visions, including duty-oriented (deontological) ethics, consequentialist ethics, and particularly utilitarianism. This led to a shift away from intrinsic goods to what things are "good for", i.e., what practical outcomes they produce. For example, is scientific research "good" and have "value" because it cultivates curiousity, awe, and wonder, or because it will lead to technology that will stimulate economic growth?

Peter draws significantly on Max Weber's ideas about secularisation, institutions, and authority. Weber argued that a natural consequence of secularisation was disenchantment (the loss of magic in the world). This is not simply "people believe in science rather than magic". Disenchantment is a loss of a sense of awe, wonder, and mystery.

Now, a few peripheral responses to the lectures.

Is secularisation the dominant force that has created these problems for universities? In question time, Peter was asked whether capitalism was more important. i.e., universities are treated as businesses and students as customers? He agreed that capitalism is a factor but also pointed out how Weber emphasised that capitalism was connected to the secularising effects of the Protestant Reformation.

 I think that two other factors to consider are egalitarianism and opportunism. These flow from universities being "victims" of their own success. Similar issues may also be relevant to private schools, hospitals, and charities. They have often been founded by people of "charisma" [in the sense used by Weber] motivated by virtue ethics. Founders were not concerned with power, status, or money. What they were doing had intrinsic value to them and was "virtuous". In the early stages, these institutions attracted people with similar ideals. The associated energy, creativity, and common vision led to "success." Students learnt things, patients got healed, and poverty was alleviated. But, this success attracted attention and  the institution then had power, money, status, and influence.

The opportunists then move in. They are attracted to the potential to share in the power, money, status, and influence. The institution then takes on a life of its own, and the ideals and virtue ethics of the founders are squeezed out. In some sense, opportunism might be argued to be a consequence of secularisation. 

[Aside: two old posts considered a similar evolution, motivated by a classic article about the development of businesses.]

One indicator of the "success" of universities is how their graduates join the elite and hold significant influence in society. [Aside: ignoring the problem of distinguishing correlation and causality. Do universities actually train students well or just select those who will succeed anyway?]  Before (around) 1960, (mostly) only the children of the elite got to attend university. Demands arose that more people should have access to this privilege. This led to "massification" and an explosion in the number of students, courses, and institutions. This continues today, globally. Associated with this was more bureaucracy. Furthermore, the "iron triangle" of cost, access, and quality presents a challenge for this egalitarianism. If access increases, so does cost and quality decreases, unless you spend even more. It is wonderful that universities have become more diverse and accessible. On the other hand, I fear that for every underprivileged student admitted whose mind is expanded and life enriched, many more rich, lazy, and entitled students suck the life out of the system.

Metrics are pseudo-rational

Peter rightly discussed how the proliferation of the use of metrics to measure value is problematic, and reflects the "rationalisation" associated with bureaucracy (described by Weber). Even if one embraces the idea that "rational" and "objective" assessment is desirable, my observation is that in practice, metrics are invariably used in an irrational way. For example, managers look at the impact factor of journals, but are blissfully oblivious to the fact that the citation distribution for any journal is so broad and with a long tail that the mean number is meaningless. The underlying problem is that too many of the people doing assessments suffer from some mixture of busyness, intellectual laziness, and arrogance. Too many managers are power hungry and want to make the decisions themselves, and don't trust faculty who actually may understand the intellectual merits and weaknesses of the work being assessed.

The problems are just as great for the sciences as the humanities

On the surface, the humanities are doing worse than the sciences. For example, if you look at declining student numbers, threats of job cuts, political criticism, and status within the university. This is because science is associated with technology which is associated with jobs and economic growth. However, if you look at pure science that is driven by curiousity, awe, and wonder, then one should be concerned. There is an aversion to attacking difficult and risky problems, particularly those that require long-term investment or have been around for a while. The emphasis is on low-lying fruit and the latest fashion. Almost all physics and chemistry research is framed in terms of potential applications, not fundamental understanding. Sometimes I feel some of my colleagues are doing engineering not physics. In a similar vein, biochemists frame research in terms of biomedical applications, not the beauty and wonders of how biological systems work. 

Are universities destined for bureaucratic self-destruction?

Provocatively, Peter considered the potential implications of the arguments of historian and anthropologist Joseph Tainter concerning the collapse of complex societies. On the technical side, this reminded me of a famous result in ecology by Robert May, that as the complexity of a system (the number of components and interactions) increases, it can become unstable.

I don't think universities as institutions will collapse. They are too integrated into the fabric of modern capitalism. What may collapse is the production of well-educated (in the Renaissance sense) graduates and research that is beautiful, original, and awe-inspiring. This leads naturally into the following question.

Is the age of great discoveries over?

Peter briefly raised this issue. On the one hand, we are victims of our own success. It is amazing how much we now know and understand. Hence, it is harder to discover truly new and amazing things. On the other hand, because of emergence we should expect surprises.

There is hope on the margins

Peter did not just lament the current situation but made some concrete suggestions for addressing the problems, even though we are trapped in Weber's "iron cage" of bureaucracy.

• Re-balancing the structures of authority
• Finding a place for values discourse in the universities
• Develop ways of resolving differences with a sense of the rationality of Alisdair MacIntyre in mind

On the first, I note the encouraging work of the ANU Governance Project.

Peter also encouraged people to work on the margins. I also think that this is where the most significant scholarship and stimulus for reform will happen. A nice example is the story that Malcolm Gladwell tells in a podcast episode, The Obscure Virus Club.

Rodney Baxter (1940-2025): Mathematical Physicist

I recently learnt that Rodney Baxter died earlier this year. He was adept at finding exact solutions to two-dimensional lattice models in statistical mechanics. He had a remarkably low public profile. But, during my lifetime, he was one of the Australian-based researchers who made the most significant and unique contributions to physics, broadly defined. Evidence of this is the list of international awards he received.

On Baxter's scientific achievements, see the obituary from the ANU, and earlier testimonials from Barry McCoy in 2000, and by Vladimir Bahzanov, on the award of the Henri Poincaré Prize to Baxter in 2021.

Exact solutions of "toy models" are important in understanding emergent phenomena. Before Onsager found an exact solution to the two-dimensional Ising model in 1944, there was debate about whether statistical mechanics could describe phase transitions and the associated discontinuities and singularities in thermodynamic quantities. 

Exact solutions provide benchmarks for approximation schemes and computational methods. They have also guided and elucidated key developments such as scaling, universality, the renormalisation group and conformal field theory.

Exact solutions guided Haldane's development of the Luttinger liquid and our understanding of the Kondo problem.

I mention the specific significance of a few of Baxter's solutions. His Exact solution of the eight-vertex model in 1972 gave continuously varying critical exponents that depended on the interaction strength in the model. This surprised many because it seemed to be against the hypothesis of the universality of critical exponents. This was later reconciled in terms of connections to the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition (BKT) phase transition, which was discovered at the same time. I am not sure who explicitly resolved this.

It might be argued that Baxter independently discovered the BKT transition. For example, consider the abstract of a 1973 paper, Spontaneous staggered polarization of the F-model

"The “order parameter” of the two-dimensional F-model, namely the spontaneous staggered polarization P0, is derived exactly. At the critical temperature P0 has an essential singularity, both P0 and all its derivatives with respect to temperature vanishing."

Following earlier work by Lieb, Baxter explored the connection of two-dimensional classical models with one-dimensional quantum lattice models. For example, the solution of the XYZ quantum spin chain is related to the Eight-vertex model. Central to this is the Yang-Baxter equation. Alexander B. Zamolodchikov connected this to integrable quantum field theories in 1+1 dimensions. [Aside: the Yang is C.N. Yang, of Yang-Mills and Yang-Lee fame, who died last week.]

Baxter's work had completely unanticipated consequences beyond physics. Mathematicians discovered profound connections between his exact solutions and the theory of knots, number theory, and elliptic functions. It also stimulated the development of quantum groups.

I give two personal anecdotes on my own interactions with Baxter. I was an undergraduate at the ANU from 1979 to 1982. This meant I was completely separated from the half of the university known as the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS), where Baxter worked. Faculty in the IAS there did no teaching, did not have to apply for external grants, and had considerable academic freedom. Most Ph.D. students were in the IAS. By today's standards, the IAS was a cushy deal, particularly if faculty did not get involved in internal politics. As an undergraduate, I really enjoyed my courses on thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and pure mathematics. My honours supervisor, Hans Buchdahl, suggested that I talk to Baxter about possibly doing a Ph.D. with him. I found him quiet, unassuming, and unambitious. He had only supervised a few students. He wisely cautioned me that Ph.D. students might not be involved in finding exact solutions but might just be comparing exact results to series expansions.

In 1987, when I was a graduate student at Princeton, Baxter visited, hosted by Elliot Lieb, and gave a Mathematical Physics Seminar. This visit was just after he received the Dannie Heinemann Prize for Mathematical Physics from the American Physical Society. These seminars generally had a small audience, mostly people in the Mathematical Physics group. However, for Baxter, many string theorists (Witten, Callen, Gross, Harvey, ...) attended. They had a lot of questions for Baxter. But, from my vague recollection, he struggled to answer them, partly because he wasn't familiar with the language of quantum field theory. 

I was told that he got nice job offers from the USA. He could have earned more money and achieved a higher status. For personal reasons, he turned down the offer of a Royal Society Research Professorship at Cambridge.  But he seemed content puttering away in Australia. He just loved solving models and enjoyed family life down under.

Baxter wrote a short autobiography, An Accidental Academic. He began his career and made his big discoveries in a different era in Australian universities. The ANU had generous and guaranteed funding. Staff had the freedom to pursue curiosity-driven research on difficult problems that might take years to solve. There was little concern with the obsessions of today: money, metrics, management, and marketing. It is wonderful that Baxter was able to do what he did. It is striking that he says he retired early so he would not have to start making grant applications!

Science job openings in sunny Brisbane, Australia

Bribie Island, just north of Brisbane.

The University of Queensland has just advertised several jobs that may be of interest to readers of this blog, particularly those seeking to flee the USA.

There is a junior faculty position for a theorist working at the interface of condensed matter, quantum chemistry, and quantum computing.

There is also a postdoc to work on the theory of strongly correlated electron systems with my colleagues Ben Powell and Carla Verdi.

There is a postdoc in experimental condensed matter, to work on scanning probe methods, such as STM, with my colleague Peter Jacobson.

Glasshouse Mountains. Just north of Brisbane.

What Americans might want to know about getting a job in an Australian university

Universities and scientific research in the USA are facing a dire future. Understandably, some scientists are considering leaving the USA. I have had a few enquiries about Australia. This makes sense, as Australia is a stable English-speaking country with similarities in education, culture, democracy, and economics. At least compared to most other possible destinations. Nevertheless, there are important differences between Australia and the USA to be aware of, particularly when it comes down to how universities function (and dis-function!) and how they hire people. 

A few people have asked me for advice. Below are some comparisons. Why should you believe me? I spent eleven years in the US (1983-1994) and visited at least once a year until 2018. On the other hand, there are some reasons to take what I say with a grain of salt. I have never been a faculty member in a US university. I retired four years ago from a faculty position in Australia. I actually haven't sat on a committee for almost ten years :). Hopefully, this post will prompt other readers to weigh in with other perspectives.

There are discussions in Australia about trying to attract senior people from the USA to come here. Whether that will come to anything substantial remains to be seen.

The best place to look for advertised positions is on Seek. 

Postdocs

This is where the news is best. Young people in the USA can apply for regular postdoc positions. Most are attached to specific grants and so involve working on a specific project. 

Ph.D. students

Most of the positions go to Australian citizens who get there own scholarship (fellowship) from the government. These are not tied to a grant or a supervisor (advisor) There are a few positions for international students, but not many. Usually they go to applicants with a Masters degree and publications.

Ph.D's are funded for 3 to 3.5 years. There is no required course work. Australian students have done a 4-year undergraduate degree and no Masters. This means tackling highly technical projects in theory is not realistic, except for exceptional students.

Faculty hiring is adhoc 

There is no hiring cycle. Positions tend to be advertised at random times depending on local politics, whims and bureaucracy. Universities and Schools (departments) claim they have strategic plans, but given fluctuations in funding, management, and government policy positions appear and disappear at random. Typically, the Dean (and their lackies), not the department, control the selection process, particularly for senior appointments. The emphasis is on metrics. Letters of reference are sometimes not even called for before short listing. Some hiring is done purely from online interviews and seminars.

Bias towards insiders 

People already in the Australian system know how to navigate it best. They may also already have a grant from the Australian Research Council and have done some teaching and (positive) student evaluations. They are known quantities to the managers and so a safer bet than outsiders. If you want to get a junior faculty position here (a lectureship) your chances may be better if you first come as a postdoc. However, there are exceptions...

Current funding crunches

Unfortunately, I fear the faculty market may be quite cool for the next few years. Many universities are actually trying to sack (fire) people due to funding shortfalls. These budget crises are due to post-covid, mismanagement, and the government trying to reduce international student numbers (due to the politics of a housing and cost-of-living crisis).

Australian Research Council

This is pretty much the sole source of funding in physics and chemistry. This is quite different to the USA where there were (pre-Trump) numerous funding agencies (NSF, DOE, DOD, ...).  They are currently reviewing and redesigning all their programs and so we will have to wait to see how this may impact the prospects of scientific refugees from the USA. (They used to have quite good Fellowship schemes for all career stages that were an excellent avenue for foreigners to come here). Some of my colleagues recommend following ARC Tracker on social media to be informed about the latest at ARC.

Thirty years ago, I came back to Australia from the USA. I had a wonderful stint doing science, largely because of generous ARC funding. Unfortunately, the system has declined. But I am sure it is better than being the USA right now.

There are many more things I could write about. Some have featured in previous rants about metrics and managerialism. Things to be aware of before accepting a job include faculty having little voice or power, student absenteeism, corrupt governance, and there is no real tenure or sabbaticals.

From Leo Szilard to the Tasmanian wilderness

Richard Flanagan is an esteemed Australian writer. My son recently gave our family a copy of Flanagan's recent book, Question 7. It is a personal memoir that masterfully weaves together a dizzying array of topics, from nuclear physics to the Tasmanian wilderness. I mention it on this blog because of its endearing and fascinating portrayal of Leo Szilard, arguably one of the twentieth century's most creative, unconventional, and eccentric physicists.

The paragraph below gives an overview of the narrative that is used to weave together all the disparate topics.

“Without Rebecca West’s kiss H. G. Wells would not have run off to Switzerland to write a book in which everything burns, and without H. G. Wells’s book [The World Set Free] Leo Szilard would never have conceived of a nuclear chain reaction and without conceiving of a nuclear chain reaction he would never have grown terrified and without growing terrified Leo Szilard would never have persuaded Einstein to lobby Roosevelt and without Einstein lobbying Roosevelt there would have been no Manhattan Project and without the Manhattan Project there is no lever at 8.15 am on 6 August 1945 for Thomas Ferebee to release 31,000 feet over Hiroshima, there is no bomb on Hiroshima and no bomb on Nagasaki and 100,000 people or 160,000 people or 200,000 people live and my father dies. Poetry may make nothing happen, but a novel destroyed Hiroshima and without Hiroshima there is no me and these words erase themselves and me with them.”

You can read an extract here and a review in The Guardian here.

The relevance of Labor Day to physicists and philosophers

This past Monday, May 8, was a public holiday in Queensland, marking Labor Day. I don't know why we don't celebrate it on May 1, but that does not matter.

In honour of the event, I post two relevant resources. The first resource is a moving video by Sabine Hossenfelder, who has carved out a post-academic income as a populariser of physics. The video is funny and sad, describing her own experience in academia leading to "Death of a Dream".

Sabine has many poignant observations about the dysfunctionalities of physics in academia, from the personal to the intellectual.

I find it sad that people who leave academia because they could not find a permanent job see themselves as a "failure." First,  most of the select few who get permanent jobs do so because they are at the right place at the right time, not because they are so much more brilliant and productive than others. Second, there is so much more to life than professional success. Finally, Sabine has been an incredible success. She has been able to popularise physics far beyond what has been achieved by others with big names and lots of resources. Furthermore, Sabine has made a significant contribution to the physics community by calling out hype and BS.

The second resource to mark Labor Day is an article, 

In Australian Universities, There Is No Such Thing as a Secure Job, by Danny Wardle. 

It puts a specific (alarming) incident in the broader context of the history of how and why the governance and management of Australian universities have been captured by the ideology of neoliberalism. This has been facilitated by the opportunism and vanity of mediocre academics who become "managers" with million-dollar salaries.

Junior faculty position in condensed matter available at UQ

The physics department at the University of Queensland has just advertised for a junior faculty position in condensed matter. Only applications from women will be considered. The advertisement is here and the closing date is January 19.

The photo is of the beach at Bribie Island, my favourite holiday location, about one hours drive away.

Aside: it was gratifying that the last faculty hired in condensed matter at UQ, Peter Jacobson, first heard about the position on this blog.

Panel on mental health

 In the School of Mathematics and Physics at UQ there is an Early- and Mid-Career Academic group who organise activities to support one another. Today they organised a panel discussion on "Mental Health, Wellness and Resilience".

I commend them for their initiative. Before covid, they organised a single forum which I spoke at and thought was particularly good.

I am one of the panelists. As someone who has struggled with mental health for four decades now, here are a three of the points I want to make.

Practise the basics: eat and drink healthy, sleep, rest, exercise, control screen time, and connect to community.

Get professional help, sooner than later. Be open to medication, counselling, and expertise. 

Live according to your own personal values, rather than those that your boss or university management may want you to have.

One of my fellow panelists, Marissa Edwards, brought to our attention this recent article in The Conversation, Where has the joy of working in Australian universities gone? It is pretty disturbing, but unfortunately not surprising.

The financial state of Australian universities

On Saturday the Australian Financial Review had a good, but disturbing, article, Uni chiefs reap million-dollar salaries, record surpluses as jobs cut. It is behind a paywall, but a hard copy photo is below.

Of particular note is how the Vice Chancellors (Presidents) of regional universities (which are like community colleges in rural parts of the USA), which most readers outside of Australia will never even have heard of, are given salaries around one million AUD. Given the relatively low cost of living in their locations, those salaries are even more spectacular.

An issue that is not discussed in the article is how at each university there is a whole cabal of senior managers, not just the VC, who are on exorbitant salaries and packages. For example, if you look at this organisational chart for UQ, I count four deputy VCs and 8 pro-VCs. In addition, there are more than ten Executive Deans and Directors of Institutes. That means there are probably about twenty people on packages in the range of $500K to $1M. None of this is public information, as far as I am aware, even though these are public institutions. For comparison, the Prime Minister of Australia receives a salary of around $600K.

One VC whose salary is not listed in the table is Brian Schmidt from ANU (Australian National University). This is because, last year he negotiated his salary down to $484,000, about half that of the other VCs. Refreshing!

Chemical fingerprints on blood diamonds

“Fortunately, the majority of gentlemen who are persuaded to steal things don’t really know a huge amount about science”

This is a choice quote in a fascinating article, New Australian technology tracks down gold thieves and blood diamonds ["New tech to trace dodgy diamonds" in the print edition] in the Australian Financial Review (AFR) Weekend.

It describes the work of John Watling, Chief Scientist at the company Source Certain. Basically by measuring the relative amounts of different trace elements [chemical impurities] in a sample of gold or diamond one can determine what mine that it has come from.

Covid-19 in a different world

 

Covid-19 has turned the world upside down. Different people and communities have had very different experiences. In my state of Queensland, it is almost a different world. To illustrate I share the data above, which prompted a three-day lockdown in Brisbane. For reference, Queensland has a population of 5.2 million.

A number of factors have contributed to the relatively positive situation. Australia is an island. Our borders were closed early. There was unity between state and federal governments. Generally, lockdowns have been pronounced promptly. Although Australians do not like authority and are a rebellious bunch, lockdowns and mask mandates have generally been observed. We are not immune from conspiracy theories and vaccine hesitancy. But, overall we have not been plagued by the same level of "politicisation" that has hobbled other countries. 

In some ways, I feel I am living in a different world.

Yet, some of this good fortune should not lead to pride and complacency. Things may still come unstuck. The Delta variant is spreading in Sydney and half the country is in lockdown. The government vaccine rollout has been dubbed a "stroll out".  Only 12 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated. Australia is currently ranked last among the OECD countries. 

The associated "blame game" has even been featured in The New York Times.

Life transitions

Sometimes I never get around to writing or finishing planned blog posts. Last month something changed, but nothing changed for me. None of this is covid-related.

Three years ago I negotiated with my university a "transition to retirement" contract. These seem to be designed by the accountants to incentivize "highly paid old farts" to retire (regardless of whether they have anything to contribute) and make the university "financially sustainable". I got to go half-time for three years with no teaching and administrative responsibilities.  (BTW. I actually love teaching. I just don't enjoy it or see the point when it becomes bureaucratic and/or students are disengaged.) Pretty strong incentive!

I did this for a multitude of reasons: mental health, other opportunities and priorities, an unwillingness to take on administrative roles that seem to be mostly implementing dubious management decisions, and general concerns about where Australian universities are heading...(money, management, marketing, and metrics)...  Taking long service leave helped clarify things. Since then the wisdom of decision for me personally has only been confirmed, particularly with covid and some family health issues. I could not imagine that I would have coped with having to teach online with two weeks notice. I admire those of you who have done it... And then there are other things in the background such as an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal  and associated submissions to a recent parliamentary inquiry...

At end of February, the three years came to an end and I officially "retired" and became an Emeritus Professor. My wife says I have not "retired" but just changed to new responsibilities and income streams.  I agree.

I am 60. I consider myself very blessed and privileged that I am able to do this. Not everyone has this freedom. I had about 25 years in Australian universities and most of it was as "research faculty" and I was generously funded and so got to work with many excellent postdocs.

In the short term very little has changed (besides the paychecks). I still have an office, am finishing Condensed Matter Physics: A Very Short Introduction, and collaborating with Ben Powell's group on spin-crossover materials, and trying to write more blog posts. I think some of this work is the nicest I have been involved with. I also work half-time as a consultant for a Christian NGO on a project that combines some of my passions and concerns: science, theology, Jesus, and the Majority World. Again I feel privileged to have that opportunity.

I am hardly "a man of leisure," contrary to what one of my wife's friends said last week.

So what about this blog? I have no immediate plans to change anything. I would like to post more often but always seem too "busy" or spend too much time polishing posts...

Noel Hush (1924- 2019): pioneering theoretical chemist

I was sad to hear last week that Professor Noel Hush died at age 94. Noel [also known as Prof.] was a pioneer in theoretical chemistry and chemical physics. He had a profound influence on both fields, particularly in their development in Australia.

Arguably his greatest scientific contribution was in the theory of electron transfer. Depending on where you are from this is called Hush-Marcus theory, Marcus-Hush theory, or Marcus theory. In particular, in 1958 Hush derived one of the most important equations in chemical physics, which can be used for design principles for functional electronic materials. A key concept here is the notion of diabatic states.

I had the privilege of knowing and working with Prof. Hush on and off over the past decade. As I made an adiabatic transition from condensed matter into chemical physics Prof. Hush provided a lot of encouragement, wisdom, perspective, and ideas. He strongly believed that theoretical chemists and condensed matter theorists could have mutually beneficial interactions. Together with Jeff Reimers and Laura McKemmish, we co-authored seven papers together. The last papers were published when Noel was 90 years old!

Besides his significant legacy of scientific knowledge, there is an incredible legacy of people that he taught, supervised, mentored, encouraged, and collaborated with.

There is an interesting interview of Prof. Hush about his life by Robyn Williams from 2011.

Postdocs are not junior faculty

Over the past decade, I have noticed a disturbing trend in Australian universities: postdocs are now often expected to be like junior faculty. Specifically, they are expected to apply for grants, recruit and supervise Ph.D. students, be involved in public outreach, help with teaching, engage with industry, ... This is quite different from the traditional role of a postdoc: purely to do research and not worry about money, teaching, and admin.

I don't think anyone is winning from this change. First, it is creating a lot more stress and anxiety for the postdocs. Second, their research productivity and quality are lower because they are distracted and spending significant time not doing research. Thus, the funding agency that is actually supporting them to do research is getting less for their money.

I think this change has been caused by several factors.
First, the job market for tenure-track positions has got even more competitive (from extreme to ridiculous) and so there is a hope that if you get a grant and have done some teaching experience (with stellar student evaluations) then you will have a better chance of getting a permanent position. Second, university management and funding agencies really want to promote the myth of scientific careers. Postdocs are "Early Career Researchers'' and so applying for grants etc. is just part of the ``natural'' progression in them developing into an independent faculty member. Management hopes that if postdocs believe this myth they will be highly motivated workers. They also see getting grants as a random process and the more applicants the better. More grants means more income from overhead and more status for the university ...
This career myth denies the painful reality that the vast majority of Ph.D. students and postdocs will not get permanent positions in research universities. If you are in doubt about this just do the following for your own department: divide the number of new tenure-track faculty hired each year (on average) by the number of Ph.D.'s graduated each year (on average).

The best thing for the vast majority would be to focus on doing some excellent research, enjoy what they are doing, gain diverse skills, and keep an eye out for exit strategies. The main hope for this to happen is for senior faculty to encourage them in these directions.

Junior faculty position in Experimental Condensed Matter available at UQ

The physics department at UQ has just advertised for a new faculty member in experimental condensed matter. The advert is here.

There is also a junior faculty position available in astrophysics.

Aside. The picture is of Lake McKenzie (no relation) on Fraser Island, which I just visited on mid-semester break.

Why am I interested in platypus milk?

A fundamental principle of molecular biology is that structure determines properties which determine biological function. This is what drives massive scientific industry of protein structure determination. An interesting press report led me to read the following paper.

Structural characterization of a novel monotreme-specific protein with antimicrobial activity from the milk of the platypus J. Newman, J. A. Sharp, A. K. Enjapoori, J. Bentley, K. R. Nicholas, T. E. Adams and T. S. Peat

The reason this got my attention was that my late father would have been very interested in the paper. A major research interest of his was milk proteins and he did write several papers on the milk proteins of the echnida and platypus. These fascinating animals are unique to Australia and Papua New Guinea and are the only monotremes (mammals that lay eggs) on the planet. My father collaborated with a biologist, Mervyn Griffiths, who was a colourful character, and was adept at finding and catching the platypus and echidnas in the wild and then milking them.

The paper is of scientific interest for two reasons. First, this particular platypus milk protein has anti-bacterial properties. Second, it has a fairly unusual structure, and having a fold that is not found in any other protein. The key question then remains as to whether this unique structural feature is responsible for the biological function.

The presence of the many alpha helices has led the authors to refer to this protein to the Shirley Temple protein in memory of the child movie star's many hair ringlets.

I was happy that an earlier paper about the anti-microbial action by some of the same authors cited many of my fathers papers on monotreme milk proteins, including one paper co-authored with Sir David Phillips. In that paper they tried to deduce the structure of echidna lysozyme and alpha-lactalbumin from similarities to other proteins. Almost 25 years later the platypus paper gives a much more robust determination. This illustrates the expanding success of protein crystallography. In that period the Protein Data Bank has increased from about 1,000 to more than 100,000 protein structures.

The value of vacations (again).

This is almost the same post I wrote a year ago. 
This is the first week of classes for the beginning of the academic year in Australia.

In preparation for a busy semester, I took last week off work and visited my son in Canberra (where I grew up) and spent some time hiking in one of my favourite places, Kosciusko National Park. This reminded me of the importance of vacations and down time, of the therapeutic value of the nature drug, and of turning off your email occasionally.

One thing I am very thankful for is that my mental health is so much better than it was a year ago, arguably because of being pro-active.

Below is a picture of our campsite near Mount Tate. My son pointed out that it is possible that night we were the highest people in Australia since we did not see anyone else for 24 hours and you are not allowed to camp near some of the higher peaks, such as Mt. Kosciusko.

An ode to long service leave

Australia has many unique things besides kangaroos and koalas. Long service leave (LSL) is a generous and egalitarian feature of the "welfare" state. After ten years working for the same employer [or the same sector such as government universities] an employee is granted three months fully paid vacation. (The exact terms and conditions vary slightly between states and employers). LSL is available to all full-time employees, regardless of whether they are janitor or CEO. This is in addition to four (plus) weeks of annual leave and for faculty in addition to "sabbaticals" [called Special Studies Program in my university]. If an employee resigns any unused balance is "cashed out".

University faculty work hard and some are workaholics. Many don't even take their allotted annual vacation, let alone LSL. Balances carry over each year and so some faculty have large balances. The "accountants" (who basically run the university) don't like this because LSL is a "liability" on their spreadsheets. If all of the faculty with large balances resigned at the same time the university would have to "cash" them out and there would be no money available to hire replacements for several months. Who would do the teaching, research, and admin? The university would grind to a halt....
However, this is pretty silly because the likelihood of massive simultaneous resignations of this particular group is extremely unlikely. When an individual does resign one can always wait a while to rehire and others absorb their "workload". Furthermore, this is likely to happen anyway, because replacing people, particularly senior ones, takes a while anyway.

Nevertheless, because the accountants rule, faculty are put under pressure to take LSL and recreation leave (vacation) if they have large balances. Specifically at UQ, when a staff member has a balance of more than 15 weeks of LSL they can be "directed" to take leave to reduce their balance. In fact, we now receive emails from the Executive Dean telling us that in our annual appraisal (performance review) we have to discuss the issue and come up with a written plan of how we will reduce our leave balance. On one level this is fine. However, on another level, this just reflects skewed priorities. We do not get explicit instructions and reminders (and threats) to discuss and plan how to engage better with students, set more challenging assessment, focus on research quality rather than quantity, be critical about metrics, ...

So what do people do with their LSL?
Is it actually in the best interests of the university for people to take it?

Here are some specific examples I am aware of.

1. Keep going to your office and doing research but no teaching or admin. The problem is that legally the university does not want this as they don't have liability insurance for you while on campus.

2. Treat it as a sabbatical and visit another institution. The problem is that you are on vacation as far as the university is concerned and so cannot use grant money for travel.

3. Have a long vacation and come back refreshed and motivated.

4. Have a great vacation and decide to retire early.

5. Spend the time looking for a new job. During this time many things and important decisions are left in limbo, before the employee eventually leaves.

Although most of these options may be good for the employee, they may not be the best thing for the employer. Thus, in the bigger scheme of things, forcing people to take LSL is debatable.
There is more to an institution than spreadsheets....

Having said all this I should say that I am really enjoying my LSL. The picture below is from a kayak trip in the San Juan Islands, near my mother-in-law's house, which also features sunsets such as above.